Oedipe’s triumphant return to Berlin

As some other few cases in the history of music, George Enescu wrote just one opera, that slowly, in time, was confirmed to be one of the 20th century lyric masterpieces. In its first 40 years of existence, Oedipe had only 5 stage productions in Europe, only to reach nowadays a remarkable number or 32 productions worldwide. The most recent one was in Germany’s capital, where Komische Oper presented on Aug. 29 the second Berliner version of Oedipe, 25 years later since Götz Friedrich production of Deutsche Oper. Except for composers’ native Romania, Berlin becomes second city in the world (subsequently to Brussels) to present a new version of the opera, Germany being the champion of Enescu’s score, presented by now in 7 cities.

Having a powerful subject, a fascinating central character, and an overwhelming score – modern, expressionist sometimes, but with a Wagnerian-like system of leitmotifs –, Oedipe became a magnet for producers and conductors. Young Evgeny Titov, who studied theatrical directing in Sankt Petersburg and who is at his second approach to the opera world, proposed for the Berlin audience a condensed version of the piece, fitting in less than 2 hours (compared to the original 160+ minutes). While doing a similar gesture in 2013, Hans Neuenfels cut the entire act 4 in his Frankfurt production, changing the sense of the drama and its conclusion. But this time, there were intelligent and surgical cuts in Titov’s approach, concentrating the attention on the title character, removing extra music or non-essential roles (such as Phorbas or Theseus). The production has a great impact, although it is simple and with no scenery changes: gray, gloomy, straight walls, with same color for the costumes of the mases (stage design: Rufus Didwiszus, costumes: Eva Dessecker). The acting is intense, and some brilliant, original ideas are welcome: Oedipe is assisting at his own birth, the infant having already the head of an adult and the face of the mature Oedipe; in act 2 he is confronting the Sphinx, who is… himself (a mezzo dressed in Oedipe’s outfit and having his face; the gatekeeper becomes sort of a guardian/observer/maître de ceremonies with a consistent presence throughout the opera; Jocaste is beautiful and appealing like a top-model, when she is presented as the wife-to-be of the saviour of the city; the plague is seen as a liquid covering

everybody and dominating the center-stage and the walls; and many other powerful ideas. The scenery, forming a cube, contributes also to a very good acoustics, while the chorus is positioned in the house, at the balcony, with a spectacular effect that combines sound from the front and from the back (the people on stage are actors and extras, not chorus members). I enjoyed very much the high class singing of Leigh Melrose as Oedipe, who brings up the first monologue, not necessarily the second, as usually done. He is an excellent actor, whose singing is adapted to the role and to the character and to the dramatic situations generated by the text, also having a powerful and perfectly controlled voice. Everybody else, including minor characters, where excellent – a performance rarely achieved, in a context when many houses are inclined to offer a brilliant 2-3 singers world-class cast, less preoccupied by the standard of the episodic roles. The artistic director of Komische Oper, Ainars Rubikis, is conducting Enescu’s intricate music, giving it a natural flow, a lot of colours, with a balanced attention both to horror passages and to the lyrical sections. It was a great success, with long minutes of standing ovations, positioning Enescu’s opera and this particular production at the top of the season’s highlights.